by Em Petrova
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
After MidKnight
Copyright Em Petrova 2018
Ebook Edition
Electronic book publication 2018
All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.
Other titles in this series:
All Knighter
Heat of the Knight
Hot Louisiana Knight
After MidKnight
Knight Shift
Angel of the Knight
O Christmas Knight
At the tender age of seventeen, Roades Knight was caught eloping. His parents put a swift end to that, and Roades was forced to break ties with the young Puerto Rican beauty. Five years later, he’s a member of the elite Knight Ops team and his family is once again disappointed in his behavior after he’s muddled up a mission. Put on probation from the team, he finds himself with too much time on his hands and in need of some action.
Carissa’s homeland of Puerto Rico is in turmoil after Hurricane Maria. Much of the island still struggles without supplies or power. Worse, there are tyrants mobbing the cities, withholding water, food and more from their own people—and her younger brother Hernan is one of them. At wit’s end, Carissa has no choice but to call in the only man Hernan ever listened to—Roades Knight.
When Roades receives the frantic plea from his old flame, he can’t deny his gut instinct to go to her. And since he’s on a forced vacation, there’s nothing stopping him—not even his family this time. Carissa’s plan is to keep her distance—and then she lands in his bed. Soon she realizes Roades isn’t the young man she knew and even if they seek their own happiness, can she learn to love the hardened special ops man Roades has become?
After MidKnight
by
Em Petrova
Chapter One
Roades had just completely and catastrophically ended his career. One fucking misstep had almost blown up the whole mission in the faces of the elite Knight Ops team. If not for his teammates, all would have been lost, and thank God they’d pulled it out of their asses at the last minute.
But Roades’ head was still on the chopping block, and Colonel Jackson had a cleaver in his hand.
Okay, it was just a file but if it was Roades’, then it was thick from other times he went off the rails and took matters into his own hands. He wasn’t some young pup anymore, and he knew how to follow orders. What had gotten him in trouble was following his gut too, and that might mean the end of his career in the special forces.
The thump of Colonel Jackson’s boots as he paced the room in front of Roades was a constant drum in his chest. He held the salute for one minute… two. His arm was beginning to ache, and Jackson knew it. Still, the colonel wasn’t going to give that at ease anytime soon. Not when he was fuming and the man to take it out on was Roades.
His biceps started to burn but he’d experienced worse. He held the pose and counted each step the colonel took. He was up to two hundred twelve when Jackson jerked around to face him.
The colonel’s stare was direct and piercing. If Roades was a lesser man or even a couple years younger, he might piss his pants. But he was a Knight—and Knights didn’t tuck tail and run.
Jackson waved the file in Roades’ face, the breeze off it smelling papery and cooling the sweat on his brow. “At ease, you little piss-ant.”
Roades dropped into a less formal pose, his muscles thanking him. He dragged in a deep breath and waited for the ass-chewing he was about to receive and then some.
“You realize what you’ve jeopardized for our division, Knight?”
Yeah, he’d gone in with guns blazing, his sights set on the target… that apparently wasn’t the target at all but one of their own undercovers. An agent who’d been working the enemy for nearly a year, easing into a position of trust and regard.
But looking down the barrel of Roades’ weapon had made the undercover talk.
Loudly.
“Sir, all due respect but—”
Jackson whirled on him. “You know, every time I hear all due respect from one of you Knight boys’ mouths, my teeth just about break off from grinding them. If you respected anything, you would not be in this position right this minute.”
“Understood, Colonel, but—”
Colonel Jackson took off pacing again. “But bullshit. You got the wrong mark and therefore the undercover was made.”
“There was nothing to tell me an undercover was even on site, sir.”
“You knew how sensitive this mission was and you fucked it up.”
“I did not fuck it up, sir. We pulled through. The captures were made, the victims recovered and safe.” Roades was grinding his own teeth now. Goddamn, he hated being told off, and being youngest of the five brothers, he had a lot of experience at it. Didn’t mean he stomached it for long, and he’d been well-trained to be mouthy.
When Jackson stared him down, his eyes were bloodshot, and a vein throbbed in his temple. “Damn, son, you just don’t get it, do you? That undercover is now a target of that group, and he cannot go back into service without taking extreme measures. He’s lost a year of work finding the man responsible for this crime, was closer to the target than anyone ever has been since the inception of the terrorist group. And you walk in there and pull a gun on him.”
“Sir, it isn’t my fault he squawked like a parrot, sir.”
Jackson stepped up, face in Roades’ face. “Are you blaming him, Knight?”
He steeled his spine. “An agent should be prepared to take a bullet if necessary, sir. He wasn’t. He collapsed under the pressure, and that is not my fault, sir.”
“Jeezus, Knight,” Jackson drawled in his Southern Louisiana twang that didn’t always come through in orders. “You are dumping the blame on the agent. When it was you who acted irresponsibly by pulling your weapon in the first place! Were you ordered to pull your weapon?”
Roades didn’t even wince in the face of his superior’s shouting, nor did he answer the question the colonel already knew. His chest burned with the need to yell back, but this wasn’t his commander and big brother Ben. His brother might kick his ass but Jackson could—and most likely would—end his career in the special ops force.
“Sir, I saw my opportunity and I took it. Back in 2011, if that SEAL hadn’t seen Bin Laden and taken the chance, we’d still be—”
Jackson jabbed a finger at Roades’ face, an inch from his nose. “Not another word, Knight!”
His chest rose and fell with the effort not to spew it back at the colonel. He kept telling himself it was in his best interest to be still and await the punishment he was sure to receive.
Jackson flipped open the file and read a bit on whatever page was on top. His brow creased and he slammed the file shut again. “This is full of your misdemeanors, Knight.” He started reciting some, and Roades tuned them all out. Each he’d gotten flack from or even a slap on the wrist, but he wouldn’t be so lucky this time.
“What the hell am I going to do with you?” Jackson seemed to speak to himself rather than Roades, so he remained silent.
He could almost hear his brothers chiding him with a silent for once. But Roades pushed his brothers from his mind and gazed at the colonel.
“Three months.”
He held up three fingers, the last three, his thumb and forefinger creating a ring. “Three months off. Your team will receive a replacement until you’re off probation.”
“Three—”
“Do you want to make it six?”
He gulped down the words he was about to say and stood straight and silent.
Jackson resumed his pacing. “See yourself out, Knight.”
He saluted, throat clamped shut on all the crap he’d like to say in retaliation. But he walked out of the building and straight to his bike. The Ninja had earned him his nickname on the team—a name he wouldn’t hear for three months.
“Dammit to hell,” he muttered and swung his leg over the seat. His team would all still be debriefing, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with himself. Three months of being left out of missions, unable to stand up next to his brothers and their teammate Rocko and protect his country.
He ran his fingers through his hair. He’d really fucked up.
Sure, he’d see everyone, but they would be unable to include him in anything classified. And just what the hell was he supposed to do for three months?
He kicked the bike into gear and sped out of the parking lot, ripping between two cars and causing one to lay on his horn. The bike leaned, but Roades was as good as a stunt driver and he whipped it upright to take a turn at high speed.
Reckless, his family would call him, and what the hell did he care right now? He didn’t.
He gassed it, and the lightweight bike pulled a wheelie. He rode it out for several city blocks before setting it down. Open road—that’s what he needed right now.
With his fists clamped on the grips and his throat burning with a bellow of frustration and fury, he gunned the bike, making his escape from reality for however long he could.
* * * * *
The empty water jug thumped against Carissa’s hip as she made her way through the town. The aid station was set up in the town square and every Monday and Thursday they could collect water and supplies. She’d been out of water for longer than she cared to think about it, but she didn’t feel bad for sharing what she had with her neighbor.
Mr. Báez waved at her, angling across the street to reach her side.
“How are you today?” she asked, noting the sheen of perspiration coating his skin and the brightness in his eyes. He was fevered.
“Fine today. Feeling much better.”
She pursed her lips. As a nurse, she’d say otherwise. Mr. Báez had been battling an infection in his lungs for a while now, and she couldn’t convince the stubborn older man to take the antibiotics she could offer.
He struggled to shift the water container he carried to the other hand, and she gasped at the sight of his red, swollen skin. She dropped her water can and it clattered into the street to lie there with the debris.
Carissa grabbed Mr. Baez’s elbow to draw him near enough to examine his swollen hand and forearm. Her gaze snapped up and she stared into his dark chocolate eyes. “When did you cut yourself?”
“Last week sometime.”
“Clearing the debris from your yard?” Hurricane Maria had sat over their island for days, slamming them, picking up items, twisting them and dropping them again. Her own yard was still a wreck, but that was because she was too busy helping others to clean it up.
“Si, from my yard.”
She turned his hand over and saw the source of the fever in its full, angry, purplish-red glory. She tracked the redness up his arm. “You’re lucky—this isn’t yet blood poisoning. But if you don’t get to my clinic today it will be soon. I’ll need to clean the infection out.”
“I’m sure it will hurt too,” he said with a mocking tone.
“Of course it will. If you’d come to me after you cut it, you would be healed by now. Now your body is battling two infections.” She released her hold on his arm and picked up both their cans. “Get to my clinic right now and wait for me while I fetch our water.”
Before the older man could retaliate, she hurried away with the water cans. Cursing under her breath at stubborn old men who were stuck in their ways and again at the devastation of their island. She cursed their lack of aid so much that it was a constant mantra in her mind.
The clinic where she’d worked had been closed, and she had set up a makeshift clinic in the shed behind her house to treat patients. The townsfolk came to her for everything from coughs to broken bones. She did what she could, but despite it being prohibited for medical personnel to leave Puerto Rico, many of the doctors had fled to the mainland and her resources were limited. All her first-aid supplies and medicines came from…
Well, the supplies weren’t easy to come by.
She reached the town square where workers were siphoning fresh water from a tank into their containers. The line was long and she had plenty of time to look around. Nothing had changed in town from the previous time she was here—the streets still littered with debris and shops were blackened shells with the windows blown in. No lights lit a single corner. They were without power.
In the line ahead, shouting broke out. She moved to see what was going on. The Spanish came in spurts of anger, and it took her a minute to understand. Then it hit her.
They said they had no more water.
“What’s happening?” she asked the person ahead of her, but the woman just shook her head, looking as confused as Carissa.
Louder shouts this time and one of the men doling out the water got shoved.
Carissa started forward, but the woman in front of her jabbed an elbow at her. “Get out of here before you’re caught in the fight!”
Carissa darted a look at the head of the line. People threw punches and others fell to the ground. No water was flowing, and her stunned mind drank it all in, along with the words floating back to her.
No water. It’s all they could get that you won’t need to pay for.
Pay for?
“Go!” the woman in front of her yelled in her face. “If you get hurt, who will treat us?”
All hell was breaking loose, and the mob of people in need of clean, safe water were rioting against those who didn’t have enough.
But why wasn’t there enough? Who was asking them to pay?
She scooped up her water jugs and ran for it. After she broke free of the crowd, she glanced over her shoulder, saw the turmoil and kept running.
At the next block, she stopped and turned to stare again. Police were involved, what few were in their area after the disaster, and they were rounding people up.
Carissa looked down at the empty jugs in her hands. What now?
She had to find somebody who had fresh water. Until they cleaned up from the hurricane, the only way to get the things they needed was through the black market, an underground supply chain that mostly came from looters out for profit.
But the idea of water being one of those commodities made her stomach twist.
Getting out of Puerto Rico was not an option for her—she had to stay and help. This was her motherland, her people.
She shook her long, dark hair out of her eyes and headed east in the town. The walking was laborious and her throat was parched. She had to keep going, though, for Mr. Báez who would definitely need his portion of water to combat his fever.
He was in her clinic waiting for her now.
When she walked up an alley and knocked at a door, she heard people talking within the building. She knocked again, and the door swung open enough for a man to poke his head out.
“Angel, let me in.”
The handsome man with a fresh, red cut on his face saw her and opened the door, allowing her to pass. The building was dark, lit only by what candles and oil lanterns they had on hand. In the middle of the room was a huge table and on the surface were supplies ranging from matches to handguns and even candy bars.
Her mouth watered at the thought of chocolate, but she needed a drink more.
Music played and, in another room, somebody was singing along with the Latin rhyt
hm.
“What do you need, Carissa?” Angel wasn’t a man to cross, and the only reason he tolerated her was because she’d insisted on stitching him after he’d been in a knife fight alongside her brother.
She looked around for her brother Hernan but if he was here, she didn’t see him. She faced Angel again. “Water. They’re saying the water has been held from us and we must pay for it. Is that true?”
His eyebrow twitched upward, as did the corner of his mouth. “You know you can get water anytime you want it.”
Confusion drew her own brows together. “How?”
“The prince of Puerto Rico has figured out a way to earn money on everything that comes in, and now he’s controlling the water.”
“I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “Who is the prince? What does that even mean? Is it a gang?”
Angel folded his arms, legs braced wide. “You could say that.”
Anger bubbled inside Carissa. “These people need clean, safe water and this person is stopping it from reaching us unless we pay him?”
“Sounds like it.”
She was small and against violence, but right now she needed to give this ‘prince’ a piece of her mind. “Where is he? Is he here?”
“Your brother isn’t here today. He’s out on the docks.”
Her spine snapped with her jerk of shock. “My brother,” she said faintly, putting two and two together and coming up with a terrible sum. Hernan was involved in this treacherous scheme. She met Angel’s eyes. “He’s really back to his old ways, isn’t he?”
She wanted to believe that knife fight was it. And the looting was bad enough. Now this was a crime against humanity.
Years before, her little brother had been young and hard-headed enough to believe he could live a life of crime and not get caught. After several tussles with the law, one person had talked sense into him and he’d stopped.
For a time.
Or maybe he’d only fooled her into believing he’d stopped.